Welcome to my blog for reviewing the best Mexican restaurants and food in Orange County, CA. I intend to cover as many as I can . . . and all sorts and price ranges: "From taco trucks to fine dining . . . and everything inbetween." Newer entries tend to focus on photos more than words. Number of restaurants covered so far: 268+. See The List

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

I've been getting plenty of traffic here at the blog over my recent mention of Korean tacos at Baja Fresh. Numerous sites have linked to it and people have been mentioning it on Facebook, Twitter, discussion boards and more. Just yesterday I got word that Taqueria el Granjenal is now also serving Korean tacos. This shouldn't have surprised me since I mentioned in my review of them over three years ago that this is a Mexican joint owned by a Korean. Reader Jonathan S., who is a fan of the prolific Mexican food scene on 19th St. in Costa Mesa, went for dinner and took some pictures and sent in his remarks:

Now THESE are how korean tacos should be. They were honestly a great amount better than the baja kogi crap i had earlier today. yes, i had korean tacos twice today. The flavor of both the pork and steak was great where baja kogi was a little bland. They seem even more bland after eating these. They come with a type of cabbage that doesnt have a lot of flavor but you can tell theres a small amount of an asian hot sauce. My one regret is after I finished I looked in the bag and there was a small container of what ended up being a thick teriyaki type sauce but the flavor was good and it was not that strong. I wonder how that would have gone on the actual tacos. Guess I will have to go back. I also got a torta de asada which was whatever. Kim's Tacos were $1.79 each and were smaller than the normal tacos.

I'm going to try to make it there soon myself to try these out and get some more pictures. Thanks, Jonathan. If anyone else knows of a place to get Korean tacos within the county line let me know by sending an e-mail or leaving a comment here.

Also, you can click here to read our complete coverage of Korean/Mexican fusion all at once.

UPDATE: Here's my own pictures from the early lunch I just got back from:

16 comments:

Well, that's bizarre. I just became friends with Jonathan S. on Yelp over the weekend and saw his review today for this place and the Baja kogi tacos right underneath it. I had to laugh when I saw your post.

Don't know how soon I'll make it out to try these, but I am much more curious about this taqueria version.

Let us know how your homemade ones turn out. Authenticity is important but taste is even more important. 100% authenticity may be hard to attain and different people have different ideas about what establishes authenticity.

Hashigo, a Korean restaurant, on Bristol and Paularino has tacos with Korean meats. They are better than the Kogi version because there is a lot more meat and the sauce isn't too salty or overpowering.

I'm not sure what authentic means when you are talking about Korean tacos. The right word seems to be fusion and then all bets are off. Authentic to me is related to "traditional" - an authentic Chicago hot dog has certain defined ingredients to it because that is the traditional way they have come to be served in Chicagoland.

I obviously need an excuse to troll 19th street, but then again, I haven't even been to all the places on Chapman here in Orange.

THX for breaking the story - big buzz for both Baja and Kogi. Been a busy couple days and we appreciate everyone's passion around this. Here's our position, if helpful:

Baja Fresh wants to clarify that our Korean BBQ style “Kogi” chicken and beef tacos and burritos, concept testing right now in one Irvine store, was by no means intended to seem “stolen” from the famous LA-area Kogi taco truck.

Rather, we were under the impression that “Kogi” was the generic word for Korean BBQ style. We have since learned “Gogi” is the general word and will be moving to change our naming to Gogi, for the Irvine store, and for any future roll outs of these products.

We admire greatly the success and popularity of the food items from the Kogi taco truck, and Korean BBQ style food overall.

As always, when our customers are interested in and demand a food offering, we often do what we can to get that food into our stores.

We are really excited about all the buzz and interest in our Korean BBQ style Tacos and Burritos, and hopeful that we can extend beyond Irvine, giving fans more choices, including, always, the original Kogi taco truck.

Thanks for the comment, Chuck (or whoever it is from Baja Fresh). I take it you saw the original entry: http://ocmexfood.blogspot.com/2009/06/baja-kogi.html (click here) that has garnered enormous attention with people linking to it from their Facebook accounts, people Tweeting it all over, lots of other blogs linking to it, the Wall Street Journal mentioning it yesterday, and more. I even stopped in myself today for lunch to try them again.